Samsung’s Galaxy S7 will reportedly take yet another page out of Apple’s playbook

Samsung’s Galaxy S7, expected to be unveiled in the first quarter of 2016, will not get a massive redesign. Instead, a new report says the phone will be similar to this year’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5 smartphones.

Samsung appears to be willing to follow in Apple’s footsteps when it comes to smartphone design. The iPhone maker only comes out with a redesigned iPhone model every two years, with the “S” generation that follows each redesign having the same appearance as its predecessor.

HTC also used the same design strategy with its One series of flagship devices, though it has now been more than three years since we’ve seen a new flagship One design.

But Samsung isn’t just copying Apple because the iPhone strategy works for its biggest rival. According to The Korea Times, Samsung wants to save money and that’s why the new Galaxy S7 will be similar to the Galaxy S6.

“The venue for unveiling new Galaxy smartphone, tentatively named the Galaxy S7, is still undecided. Though Samsung has so far been preferred to hold its own Unpacked event for new products, the S7 will get a little change,” a source familiar with Samsung’s plans told the Times.

Rather than focusing on design, Samsung wants to improve the overall user experience, and that means packing even better internal components into the Galaxy S7.

“As the S6 and S6 Edge represented progress, the S7 will have improvements both in picture quality, performance and other some new features. But because smartphones have already been commoditized, you don’t need to spend more on a surface overhaul,” a second source said. “The key point is can consumers enjoy content with enhanced viewing quality and boosted processing speed.”

The overall design for the Galaxy S7 will be similar to the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy Note 5, the news site says, but the phone will sport, faster processors, new DRAM chips with expanded storage, and OLED displays.

Local brokerage Korea Investment says that the Galaxy S7 will be introduced in Barcelona, Spain at the MWC mobile expo event, but not sooner than that. Previous reports claimed that the phone might be unveiled as soon as January 2016 at CES, but such an early lunch might have an adverse impact on Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5 sales.

The report doesn’t explicitly say whether the phone will be available in two flavors, including flat and “edge” versions, like this year’s flagship Samsung handsets.